Lettering with Purpose: Creative techniques and prompts for making meaningful, inspirational hand-lettered art
If you’ve spent an inkling of time lately on social media, you’ve likely seen some gorgeous inspirational graphics created by handlettering. As someone who adores a good font, I’ve been jealous of anyone who can create such beautiful graphics without relying on a predefined font. However, what if you didn’t have to scour anymore for that perfect font or gorgeous vector art that gives a graphic just the right embellishment? What if you could create it yourself?
In the new book LETTERING WITH PURPOSE, author and artist Brittany Luiz teaches you how to develop your own professional hand-lettering, calligraphy, and brush-lettering techniques.
I am now in awe of anyone who can draw such beautiful letters because there is much more to consider than you might initially think. Besides grasping the idea of basic composition, you also have to master the basics of what creates a letter—i.e., ascenders, descenders, crossbars, bowls, etc. If you are wondering what all of that means, you are not alone. Brittany explains it thoroughly in the book, thankfully. I now have even greater respect for people who have taken years to create a perfect font family, even more so for font designers who give their work away for free.
If you’ve got a lot of dedication, time, and a little bit of money that you’re willing to spend on supplies, LETTERING WITH PURPOSE will jumpstart you to becoming a professional hand-lettering designer. It provides full-color, step-by-step instructions on how to create the effects shown in the photographs. I really appreciate that it tells you what pens/inks/watercolors/etc you should use to create the same look, leaving no guesswork as the reader develops their own skills. I particularly like that the end of the book gives you 100 project ideas to help get your creative juices flowing so that you don’t allow your newly acquired skills to get rusty. It also provides practice alphabets to mimic until you are confident enough to create your own unique letters.
One of the only negatives I have for this book is that the page design seem a little immature with standard top and bottom zig-zag pattern borders (as seen in post header that I snagged from the book; recolored it from original bright pink). Granted, it does leave plenty of room for the photos, but I felt like it made the book look suited more towards a young adult. Also, I didn’t really like that the author recommends a brand of pens made by Tombow, the company she works for since that seems a little bit like mixed interest. It would be better if Luiz spelled that out in the beginning of the book when she’s recommending supplies rather than hiding that fact in her biography. She doesn’t recommend brand name items for sketchbooks, watercolors, etc, I’m assuming because Tombow doesn’t make those items.
With that being said, perhaps it would be a great idea if the publisher offered this book packaged up with basic supplies in a bundle!
I give this book 4 out of 5 stars using the GoodReads scale! Thanks to Netgalley for giving me this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Paperback book available for purchase at many retailers, including:
Please note that all images included in this post are from LETTERING WITH A PURPOSE and are owned by the publisher.
Two Cats and a Book 